Did you want me to go first? I don’t mind. Maybe you’re feeling a bit shy, so I’ll start.

The first thing I am pretending is that my cat Boots, doesn’t pee on everything in the house. You know, it’s annoying and I realize most people would toss the cat outside, but not me.

Besides this is MY illusion and therefore I get to do what I want. I am in charge of him, so I don’t want him outside because I would always worry about him and feel horrible. So, I am pretending he always uses his litter box and never misses.

Let’s pretend that both of them no longer use my furniture as a scratching post. Instead they feel no need to shred anything of mine and always let me sleep through the night even if there is a pack of raccoons wandering around in the yard. They no longer announce in the middle of the night that our household is currently at Defcon 5 because of the raccoons and that I must get up immediately and deal with it, pronto!

Oh, and since we are on this subject, let’s pretend that I also still have all my pets and they never died. Roscoe is still being grumpy, Shadow is still wagging his tail while Maverick throws his head around and wants to play and Renegade is crinkling his nose and boxing his brothers.

They are all still here and always will be, along with my brother and Dad.

Yeah, this is a really nice place to be today.

Let’s see, what else do I want to pretend?

(Thinking here…give me a second)

Oh yeah, of course! I am pretending that I finished my book and it’s published. I’m at a book signing event and THERE YOU ARE! Of course you are there. We finally get to meet after all this time. We go out to dinner (I blow off all my peeps) and we have a great time, stay up all night eating and drinking and talking and smoking cigars.

We bond. It’s fun. And come to find out, smoking cigars is good for you.

This next one is a bit hard, but since I started this, might as well be honest.

I’m pretending that the deep buried feeling of loneliness is gone. Poof! There it went! All gone, right? Everything is good now. (This one may need repeating because it’s stubborn). It sort of comes and goes but that’s OK. As for today, buh bye! (Waving hand here).

See, even as I write this, a warm sense of happiness starts in my toes and moves up my legs and makes it all the way to the top of my head. I don’t know what sensation happiness gives you, but for me it is a feeling of lightness, like my body just got smaller as I got bigger.

Another one I like is that I still laugh as much as I normally do, but NO MORE LAUGH LINES! Damn, who needs these anyway? Not me! I don’t care what anyone says about them, they need to go and don’t give me any BS about products that get rid of them. They all lie. All those commercials lie and I know this because I’ve tried every damn product out there and guess what? They don’t work, so for today, all laugh lines are gone. Period! End of discussion.

For today, you subscribe to my blog and I subscribe to yours and we talk, all the time. We have fun and we exist on our own planet and anyone that doesn’t like it can go away. Screw them, right? I never liked them anyway, so now it’s official. Just you and me and what we talk about and the fun we have. That’s what’s important – the fun we have. The “getting to know each other” part that makes you look forward to talking to your friend again as soon as you’ve logged off or hung-up the phone.

Speaking of subscribers, not only are you one of them, but my family subscribes too. It’s weird that they don’t, but for today they do and they like it. It’s nice when your family supports you, don’t you think? Yes, me too, so let’s pretend that everyone we know loves what we write and get all fussy and grumpy until our next posting appears. We liked getting bugged by our readers, don’t we?

Yes we do, oh yes we do! Plus we love it when we log on and have too many emails to deal with but because you and I are so dedicated to what we do, we stay up late and make sure to write back to everyone because we care.

The things we pretended as a child are still there. Maybe a bit buried or forgotten for now, but go ahead and dig them up. It’s OK because I said so. Now you just need to say so and there it will be.

No, don’t look around and ask for permission on this. Come back here and tell me what you want to pretend. Whisper it in my ear, if you want. Fine by me.

Tell me all about your planet. It’s only fair because I just told you about mine.